VOMITORIAAA!!!

Week two has come and gone and as expected, everyone is still just as awesome as when we all first arrived. We checked into UWF and were super stoked to have a kitchen! We met Jeff Eble and were ready for an early day.
 
Day one started in the forest. If we're being honest, I was completely unhappy about having to go into the most xeric, hot, open places I could think of. I even took a selfie to show how grumpy I was. I mean, we're marine bio students, why do we have to go to a forest? After learning about all the different types of plant species and even how it connected to the beach, I realized that it wasn't so bad after all. It was actually pretty fun, once you got past the ant bites that is.

Tiffany is in an angry state (notice the difficulty of trying not to smirk)



Everyone's personal favorite... the Ilex vomitoria

 




Pitcher plants



Day two was a day at the beach, my favorite place!!! As much as it sounds like it was a day full of fun and games, everyone had a lot of work to do. It wasn't anything short of busy. After identifying the importance of shorebirds, not walking through sand dunes, and pulling countless sein nets while we also collected light and D.O. data, we were exhausted and ready to goof off (and do our homework of course)!

 

Day three was boat day! Even better! We performed many water quality analyses while we were out on Perdido Bay. These tests included the YSI, CDT, PONAR, D.O., Secchi Disk, and sediment traps! Since we are the group that we are, we were able to make fun of the whole day.

 

 

 

 

Day four and five were data analysis days. We learned processes as well as practiced skills we already knew. Looking through the microscopes was amazing in our discoveries! We came to the conclusion as a group that Pensacola Bay was suffering excess nutrients due to the TWENTY inches of rain it had endured in one day.

 

 

 

The adventure continues as the twelve, well no thirteen (since we finally got Brock to be our friend), take over Jacksonville!